


Aftermath

by tridecaphilia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, Post The Great Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-11
Updated: 2013-06-11
Packaged: 2017-12-14 17:17:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tridecaphilia/pseuds/tridecaphilia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and even John never stopped to think about what happened to the surviving hostages after Moriarty was finished with them. But to them, even if they're alive their lives are over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> Previously published at LiveJournal under the same username.

Gabriel used to have phobias. He used to be afraid of spiders and heights and dogs. He couldn’t say why, just that he was—some spiders were poisonous, but really he just found them terrifying, and some dogs would rip you apart, but he found even tiny dogs unnerving with how hyper they were and how many more natural weapons they had than he did. And heights, well, you could fall to your death easily.

That was before.

He used to have creative nightmares, too. His nightmares, sometimes, involved fire picking up a butcher knife and trying to stab him while he fought back with a rubber mouse before running and hopping on the tube, where everyone stared at him but everyone was a dog and the fire was already there but it wasn’t holding the knife anymore because it had to hold on but the dogs were plenty scary and then somehow they all went off a cliff. It made sense in the dream.

That was before.

Now if he thought about a spider, all it got was a hysterical giggle that he’d ever thought something so tiny and harmless could be scary. Heights? He could jump off a building and never be afraid. And if a dog barked at him he shouted it down. The only thing that scared him anymore was the memories. And he was so much more afraid now.

It was his fault it happened so often, really, because he couldn’t get the story out, not even to his therapist. His friends didn’t know, his family didn’t know. The police had kept his name out of the papers. So no one knew what to avoid, the things that triggered the fear.

Surprises.

His friends would greet him by clapping him on the shoulder or grabbing his arm to spin him around, and he’d jerk and lash out at them. He’d be terrified, and they’d see it. They’d laugh and say it was only them, and he’d calm down, slowly. He’d try to laugh it off, say they’d surprised him. They didn’t know about the _other_ time he’d been surprised.

Strangers.

Anyone new his friends brought round, especially to his flat, made him freeze. He was afraid to fight, because it might be him come back, and Gabe couldn’t fight him—he’d kill everyone. But he wanted to, because they might take him again and he wouldn’t let that happen, he wouldn’t, he _wouldn’t_ , it had been bad enough the first time… His friends didn’t realize. Some of them ran through girlfriends faster than Gabe ran through a six-pack of beer, and brought each round to meet him. He tried to react normally, but he couldn’t. Strangers weren’t safe.

Darkness.

He couldn’t sleep without a light anymore. Somehow he felt safer if he could see anyone who came through the door. It wouldn’t make a difference in the long run, he knew, especially since he wouldn’t or couldn’t fight if the man showed up, but he would have some warning this time.

Pagers.

The most ridiculous part, to Gabe’s mind, was his inability to use the little devices. He’d gotten rid of the one he’d had for work, and told his friends not to text him anymore—even that was too like the voice he’d parroted.

No, that wasn’t the most ridiculous.

He couldn’t stand when his therapist repeated his words. He couldn’t stand when his friends did it. He couldn’t handle people reading out loud, especially in that horrible monotonous tone that said they were doing it for an assignment and didn’t know or care what the words were. It made him want to cover his ears and scream to drown them out. He’d done it, back then. He knew others had done it; the writing—the man, he thought—had told him. Repeating the words, reading the words. It meant they weren’t free, weren’t safe, were dead men tethered to another man’s game. It terrified him, and it shouldn’t. He thought. But it did.

That voice—his voice, reading someone else’s words—that was his nightmare now. It was all he dreamed about. He tried to shut it off. He tried to find something that would bring back his old, less predictable nightmares. But every night. The words changed, but he stood there, reading them. Sometimes at the end, the police came to get him.

Sometimes at the end, the explosion came.


End file.
